One of the first rules of the hobby is: Never throw anything away. I sell hobby stuff, I trade hobby stuff, I give hobby stuff away, but I never throw hobby stuff away. Someday, some how there will be a need for it and you will wish you never tossed it out.
My old buddy, Wayne Wanner, Master Modeller, who is no stranger to this blog, almost forgot that rule recently. He got this tired old model in a collection he purchased and took one look at it and tossed it in the trash bin. Soon afterwards he rescued it from the landfill and turned a junked wreck into a useful junked wreck.
Battlefields are often littered with the dead vehicles of previous battles. In Afghanistan the Allied keep finding monuments in the form of BTRs and T-55s to the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, burned out hulks that sit alone alongside a former ambush site.
On the wargame table these used up old warriors can be used as wrecks to clutter the battlefield. They can hide a sniper, or artillery observer, or an panzerfaust team. They can serve as an artillery reference point or a hull down position for a defending tank. They can canalize an attacking enemy force into the minefield or into a good position for a side shot by your long range anti-tank gun.
Even if you don't use the wreck for as a stand alone model, road wheels, gun breech, gun muzzle break, gun tube, bow machine gun, return rollers, drive wheel, all kinds of good bits there. That's the kind of stuff you scratch build or convert with or use as bits on your recovery vehicles.
I am proud of Wayne Wanner, Master Modeller, for bringing this old heap back to life.
